Cuervo Carroñero
by Ben Who Devours
Summary: Such are the words of the scavenger bird, which was once known to ply the sunless desert.


**Cuervo Carroñero**

When did my life begin? That depends on your definition of 'I'.

Personally I believe it began on the desert floor of Hueco Mundo, when first as a Gillian I opened my great eyes and saw the world and _thought_. I do not recall my previous existence as a Hollow, let alone as a human, and I do not consider those existences as a part of myself. It could well be that my appearance, my personality and my habits are in some way affected by the lives that I once lived- Certainly something remains, or how else could I speak, walk, put names to alien concepts? They are instinct to me and I see them as an inheritance, those past lives as my ancestors who have passed down their heirlooms and their features.

Ancestor. Heirloom. These words too they have given to me.

So. I was born as a Gillian then, on a crystal-studded desert plain beneath a moonlit sky, and immediately I felt the need to eat. My kind's existence is emptiness, and nature abhors a vacuum. So forwards I marched, figuring dimly that one direction was as good as any other.

But I was wrong.

There was precious little food to find; Hueco Mundo's surface is sparse compared to the subterranean forest below the desert floor, and I knew not the entrance. The Hollows ran from me, and what meagre meals I found were not enough to sustain my new intelligence. The hunger of a Menos is different to that of a regular Hollow; beyond the need to soothe the pain inside there is a physical need, the need to avoid regression. Already, it seemed my life was nearing its end.

It was then that I found salvation. It came as a giant presence to the east, a blaze even my dim senses could sense from countless miles away. I felt a power. An unimaginable, crushing, biting power, one which has guided me everafter like a lantern through the dark. I moved towards it, mouth open wide as if I could suck in enough of that aura to feed off it. As I ran I began to feel other presences rushing towards the beacon, and the thought of their competition spurred me on all the faster towards something that as I rushed closer, was moving slowly away from me.

I did not stop running until I found the first corpses. A pile of dead Hollows, stacked atop one another in a mound of dozens. My shock was overwhelming, but my hunger was greater-I fell, literally toppled over, into the pile and ate until there was nothing left. The presence was still in the distance, but it was closer than before, and my mind became clearer with the gift of sustenance.

I waited for it to move further, and feasted on the corpses once again. I almost strayed too close in my gluttony, close enough to feel pain and the dissolving, bludgeoning force the thing emitted, close enough to see it with my eyes. Human in size and shape, a horned wolf's mask with flowing golden hair descending to its bone-covered knees. It ran from me, its power letting up. If it had been slower I would not be here today.

I followed the creature from then on. Always circling away from the Hollows which rushed forth in hope of a meal, devouring the stragglers, feasting on the lethal aura's victims. After a time the enigmatic wanderer changed, something I did not understand: it attacked its own mask, howling to the heavens as it rent the thing with wicked claws. From this self mutilation one became two-a young girl in a broken helmet, a man with a wolf's-teeth necklace, clad in dull and tattered robes. They walked together after that, still surrounded by the killing aura in spite of all their efforts.

In time I changed as well, as my power grew from my constant food supply. My body collapsed in on itself to assume a form more fitting: My mask running like wax to become a beak, my Gillian's robes splitting into the feathers of two huge matte-black wings, my huge form compressing into that of a great scavenging crow. When first I took to the sky I turned to survey my everdistant fellows and saw the girl pointing at me, chattering excitedly for the first time since the two's separation, tugging on the man's robe in an effort to get his attention. I screeched loud and swooped over them, reveling in my new body.

I stayed with them, of course. I would circle above the two of them, swooping down to pick off my victims or taking my fill of the dead. They would wander as always and kill by their very presence, and always I would be there, the carrion crow following in destruction's wake. And I watched them-they would walk, or the man would hold the girl and they would flicker and vanish and reappear elsewhere in the desert, though never so far that I could not find them again. At times they would become one once more, albeit a different one to what they had been, and create wolves with which to pet and run with. Sometimes the wolves would last beyond their separation, and the little girl would play and wrestle with them in the sand.

But they were still alone, in the end.

So from time to time I would flit closer to them, or caw loudly. The girl would wave and I would respond, using all my skill at flight to weave my way about the sky, or fire cero blasts into the sand to bring some light and noise to the mausoleum of a world that we lived in. She would clap at my antics, sometimes. The man would not clap or wave, but he always watched me closely, which I think was the same thing, in a sense. Perhaps some would have left for pastures new when granted such sure flight and such a large world, but they were the reason I was alive and the only sure things in my cosmos save the sand and the wind and the moon. I would rather have torn off my wings than left them.

And so when the stranger came and stepped into their aura without fear, I was frightened. When they stood to follow him, I was horrified. I could not let it stand. I swept down from the sky with my talons outstretched and my voice hoarse with anger, and with a faint smile he bound my wings with a word and sent me crashing in a heap to the ground. There I writhed, trapped in the killing aura, until the pair vanished and their aura lifted and only the stranger was left. With a gentle voice he said to me:

"You may come with us, if you would like."

So I did, learning what the two had become and becoming like them in turn. My mask is no more now, reduced to a mere facial decoration. I had forgotten, or had never known, the pleasantness of the sun and the breeze upon my face before removing it. My body has become human, save for those times when the urge to ply the air overtakes me. Then I command my blade and name it and take to the sky on pitch-black wings once again. And still I accompany the two who gave me life when all that awaited me was a slide back into mindlessness.

The _tenteikura_ calls us now, the garganta portals opening wide. The enemy is arrayed above the streets of a false human city, bristling with killing intent. Masters Starrk and Lilinette step out onto the air and I follow behind them, separate but always nearby.

Always.


End file.
